


We Are Never, Ever (Going Shopping Together)

by nagi_schwarz



Series: The Oppenheimer Effect [49]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Crossover, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-16 12:33:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7268428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Multiverse, Evan Lorne + the whole gang, Evan usually does the grocery shopping on his own, but every once in a while the whole household joins him…much to his dismay."</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Are Never, Ever (Going Shopping Together)

As much as it irked Evan when JD made comments about him being the “wife” in the house, Evan found certain domestic chores, like cooking, soothing. And grocery shopping. That was a chance for him to be by himself, ruminate on things like new recipes or paintings, or maybe de-stress after his monthly check-in with Dr. Robinson. He had a system, which Nana had taught him. Every week, he made a shopping list. He started off the week with a blank list save for several essential headings - meat, dairy, fruit/veg, baking, and miscellaneous - and he filled it in as he went, as people reported supplies were running low. Then, when he went to the grocery store, he went up and down every single aisle, checking things off the list as he went, but also grabbing anything he knew he needed that hadn’t made it onto the list. That way he got everything he needed, and he didn’t have to double back for anything, ever. It was efficient, it was routine, and the girls at the check-out stand knew he always brought his own recyclable bags, because he hated hoarding plastic bags and also his own bags were less likely to tear.  
  
Half the time he didn’t bother to tell the others when he was grocery shopping since he did it on the way home, but somehow it had fallen to them to host the SGC science department’s New Year’s Eve bash, so Evan was making an extra shopping run.  
  
“Back in a couple of hours. Doing party shopping,” Evan said, halfway to the garage door.  
  
JD popped up from where he’d been fiddling under the sink. “Grocery shopping? I’ll come with you. Help you carry stuff.”  
  
“Oh, I can get it all into the car myself just fine,” Evan said. “It’s getting it out that’s the -”  
  
“We need some special party supplies as it is.” JD hollered over his shoulder, “Hey guys, we’re going grocery shopping.”  
  
“No, really,” Evan began. “I can do this on my own just fine.” He waggled his party supplies list.   
  
But John, Rodney, Tyler, and Cam assembled in the kitchen like Evan had called a troop muster, shrugging on coats and pulling on hats. Before Evan could protest this gross invasion of his Me Time, everyone piled into the car, and Evan was driving them to the grocery store.  
  
It wasn’t that he _had_ to do the shopping alone. He just...did the shopping alone, and that was what. But having them along to help him remember party supplies he might have left off the list was a good thing, right?  
  
Wrong.  
  
Tyler and JD tried to sneak junk food into the cart every time Evan’s back was turned. Evan was inspecting some vegetables for a vegetable tray when he heard, ever so softly, something land in the cart.  
  
“Put it back,” he said without turning.  
  
“Holy Hannah,” JD said, “do you have eyes in the back of your head?”  
  
“Tyler,” Evan said warningly.  
  
Tyler sighed and slunk away, taking the junk food with him.  
  
Cam was constantly in a rush and kept wandering away to other aisles, attempting to speed things up by ‘checking ahead’.  
  
Rodney insisted on checking the label on every single item before it went into the cart, just to make sure it didn’t have citrus in it.  
  
“Nothing I buy has citrus in it unless I specifically label it so,” Evan said, as calmly as he could manage. (JD’s answer to dealing with Rodney’s allergy was to put NO RODNEY NO stickers on anything with citrus in it; JD had the kids in Evan’s graphic design class print up the stickers for him specially).  
  
JD, who’d just been busted trying to sneak a frozen pie into the cart (“Frozen pies will never darken our doorstep, Jonathan Daniel!” “But what if Tyler and I get hungry in the middle of the night?”), decided to needle Rodney.  
  
“I could help you with that,” he said. “You’re squinting pretty hard. You might want to think about glasses.”  
  
“Silence, child,” Rodney snapped, and then did a double take at JD, sighed, and put the jar of jam into the cart.

John suggested Evan replace just about every item in the cart that wasn’t generic with the generic brand. Evan explained, patiently, that if he didn’t use a generic item, it was because the household generally didn’t like it, and even if it was cheaper up front it didn’t save them money because then no one ate it and throwing it away was a waste and someone went out and bought the brand the household liked anyway.  
  
“But we could -”  
  
“You complained the peanut butter tasted like cardboard,” Evan said.  
  
John put the generic jar back grudgingly.  
  
Evan asked them to pick out chips for the party in hopes of distracting them, and it worked. He ducked around the corner into the baking aisle and would be free to peruse the baking chocolate on offer for about ten minutes before they noticed he was missing.  
  
“Shopping with the husband and the kids is the worst, isn’t it?” a woman said.  
  
Evan looked up. It was Sara, wearing her scrubs, obviously just off her shift at the hospital. They ran into each other every now and again. Something about her always looked familiar beyond the fact that they were shopping colleagues.  
  
He smiled. “They’re just a little...overwhelming.”  
  
“At least yours is older and you don’t have to bribe him with candy to behave,” she said, and she looked a little wistful for a moment. “That’s what the candy at the check-out stands is for. Rewards at the end of the line.”  
  
“I’ll remember that,” Evan said, smiling.  
  
“That’s a lot of food, even for you,” Sara observed, peeking into his cart.  
  
“We’re hosting a New Year’s Eve party,” Evan explained.  
  
“Have fun with that. I plan on hanging out on my couch with my dog and watching the Times Square shindig on TV.”  
  
“If I could, I might join you,” Evan said.  
  
From just around the corner, JD said, “Fer cryin’ out loud, we lost Evan.”  
  
Sara whipped around, startled. “Jack?”  
  
And suddenly Evan could see it, in Sara’s face. He remembered her from that one visit to Charlie O’Neill’s grave.  
  
JD, John, Rodney, and Tyler came careening around the corner, arms full of chips (Evan’s only concession to junk food; he’d make dip himself).  
  
“There you are,” JD said, unloading his armful of chips into the basket. He narrowed his eyes. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were hiding from us.”  
  
“Not at all,” Evan said. “Just looking at the baking chocolate.” He scanned his shopping list. “Hey, why don’t you go help Cam with the paper plates and plastic cutlery? He’s a few aisles over.” Anything to get them out of his hair for a little longer - and away from Sara O’Neill (if she even still went by that name). “In fact, we might need a second cart after all. Maybe you could run and get one?”  
  
“Sure,” John said, relieved to finally be useful. He tugged Rodney after him.  
  
But Sara said, “I remember you.”  
  
JD turned to her, and shock flared in his eyes. “Sara? I mean, Mrs. O’Neill?”  
  
Sara abandoned her cart and stalked across the aisle, caught JD’s chin in her hand and tugged him down to look at her. “Who are you?”  
  
“Ma’am,” JD said, keeping his voice low, “my name is JD Nealson. And you’re kinda hurting my face.”  
  
“You look just like Jack,” Sara whispered. “Like Charlie would’ve if he’d had the chance to grow up. Are you him? Are you the other Charlie? The one who wanted the Stargate?”  
  
Evan rocked back on his heels, shocked.  
  
Tyler just looked confused. “Who’s Charlie? And what’s a Stargate?”  
  
JD gently extricated himself from Sara’s grip. “Ma’am, I promise I’m not Charlie. Charlie didn’t look like Colonel O’Neill. He looked like you.”  
  
Sara came back to herself with a gasp, recoiled a step. “I’m so, so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I -”  
  
“It’s all right,” JD said.  
  
Sara retreated to her shopping basket. “I’ll just go now.”  
  
“Happy New Year,” Evan called after her.  
  
Cam came rolling around the corner, several stacks of paper plates balanced on his lap. “We’re going to need another cart,” he said.  
  
“We are on it,” Rodney said proudly. He and John arrived with a new cart. This one was already laden with boxes of plastic cutlery and a massive party pack of napkins.  
  
“Thank you,” Evan said.  
  
“Hey,” Tyler said, “what’s a Stargate?”  
  
Cam dropped the plates he was lifting into the shopping cart.  
  
Evan sighed. He was never bringing them shopping with him again.   
  
Ever.


End file.
